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Marie and Pierre Curie at Work
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Spotlight: Pierre Curie and
Marie Sklodowska wed on this date in 1895. The two became the formidable scientific team that discovered
polonium and
radium. In 1903, they shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Professor
Henri Becquerel for their discovery of
radioactivity. Pierre Curie was a professor at the
Sorbonne until he was killed in an auto accident in 1906. Marie Curie took his post, becoming the first woman to teach there. She was also the first person to win a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry for her continued work on radium and its compounds.
Quote: "I never see what has been done. I only see what remains to be done." — Madame Curie
Question of the Day: Who was Irene Joliot-Curie and was she related to Marie and Pierre Curie?Irene Joliot-Curie was the daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie. She married
Frederic Joliot, who, like Irene, was a scientist. She and her husband worked together and, in 1935, the Joliot-Curies won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their discovery of artificial radioactivity. Irene also experimented with bombarding uranium nuclei with neutrons. She collaborated with scientist Pavle Savitch; together they showed that uranium could be broken down into other radioactive elements.
Word of the day: moonbat
Moonbat (also "barking moonbat" and "moonbat crazy") is a term often used currently in U.S. politics as a political epithet referring to anyone that is liberal or on the left. "Wingnut" (or "right wing nut") is frequently preferred as the analogous epithet aimed at the political right.... According to an article by
New York Times language maven
William Safire, the term was first used by the famous science fiction author
Robert A. Heinlein in 1947.
(© Wikipedia)
"
Robot," which first appeared in the 1923 English translation of the Czech play
R.U.R. by
Karel Čapek, is perhaps the most famous example of a word that originated in science fiction literature and passed into common parlance. This week we'll take a look at other terms coined by sci-fi writers.
Today's History:
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Louise Joy Brown
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Today's Birthdays:
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Robert Zoellick
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